Living the Life of an Essentialist
WHY would you want to: With all the technology and other distractions infiltrating our valuable time and creating massive chaos in our lives, Essentialism offers a reprieve from the common world and can help you do less while accomplishing more. I believe this way of living is simpler, more fulfilling, and overall easier (though getting there is fairly hard)
WHERE is this from: Essentialism by Greg McKeown. This book is about “the disciplined pursuit of less” and does a great job making this lifestyle feel realistic
HOW do you do it: I believe there are three steps that form a cycle: 1) explore 2) eliminate 3) execute. Let’s start with explore. To live an essentialist life, the first step you must take is to identify what is essential and what is nonessential. This might be the hardest part and where you should spend a good amount of time. Check out this post on my favorite way to do this. Basically you must choose on what is WILDLY important and will make the greatest impact on your life. This may mean that other urgent but less important things go by the wayside, and we must learn to be ok with that.
This leads us to the second step: eliminate. This is also simple, but not easy; we must eliminate all the non-essentials. Obviously there are things that have to get done no matter how unimportant they are, such as doing laundry. For this pressing tasks that do not push your life forward, do your best to delegate or fully eliminate them. If you cannot do either (you live alone and need clothes to wear), do these AFTER you do your essentials. Willpower is like a muscle, the more you use it without rest the less of it you can use before you rest. Do you essentials when your willpower is highest and then complete your non-essentials. For bigger picture non-essentials, such as grabbing a beer with the boys (the boys who are doing nothing with their lives), eliminate them entirely, you are better than that.
Finally, you must execute on your essentials. This is the easiest thing to do if you have done the first two correctly. As mentioned above, essentialism is the disciplined PURSUIT of less. It is a pursuit because it is a non stop process. We must continue to explore and eliminate if we hope to execute in the long term. We must always stop ourselves to ask “what is essential?”
After implementing this in my life the past month, I can say, despite the limited time frame, that the time and effort it takes to explore and eliminate is well worth the simplicity, calmness, and freedom it has created. As U.S. Navy Seal commander and author Jocko Willink loves to say, “discipline equals freedom.” Take the time to pursue less in a disciplined and continuous way and you will have unimaginable freedom in your life.
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